


Neither the Time Nor the Place

by Megan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Flirting, Banter, Biting, Bruises, Canadian Shack, Dominant Masochism, Established Relationship, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Held Down, Homesickness, Huddling For Warmth, Kink Exploration, Laughter During Sex, Light Masochism, M/M, Sharing Body Heat, by Canadian Shack I mean a Robot Lion on an Alien Planet, non-graphic injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:50:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10120484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan/pseuds/Megan
Summary: This seems like a thing that should have come up before, either in sparring practice or while arranging themselves in too-small regulation beds. Why hasn't it come up before? Is it just not a normal week unless Keith's physical makeup is finding yet another new and inconvenient way to surprise him? Oh, hey, you can open Galra doors and use quintessence! You're half Galra, by the way! Did we mention that you'd really like Shiro to hold you down and have his way with you?(Or, romance novel cliches and good-natured mutual kink shaming in space.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set at some nebulous point post-season 2 because shhhh everything is going to be fine and these precious space boyfriends will have terrible, ill-advised adventures like this throughout season 3. It will be a running theme among the paladins! What stupid planet will Shiro and Keith get stuck on this time? Are they doing this on purpose? Will Lance ever figure out that these two have been dating since before Kerberos? FIND OUT NEXT WEEK ON VOLTRON.
> 
> My tl;dr on ages can be summed up as: I read Keith as 18-19 and Shiro as 21-ish the whole time I was watching the series (the Garrison always struck me as a West Point-esque post-secondary academy, not high school), this doesn't contradict what little canon we have for Keith, and nobody on the production team seems to be able to agree on Shiro's age. Nobody in this story is underage, and there's no big age gap here.

"We have got to find a better way to be alone." Shiro laughs, but his voice has gone thin. It makes the back of Keith's neck prickle and his shoulders tense up. "At least there aren't any weird space lizards trying to eat me this time."

"Next time, do us both a favor and avoid the serious chest wound, too." He doesn't try to stop himself from snapping, even though he knows this isn't Shiro's fault. Most of said fault lies with the Galra who have spent the past few hours shooting at them, with a little left over for Keith for not stopping them in time. And some more for shitty Altean scanning technology for landing them on a freezing shithole of a planet. Whatever algorithm decides that the air is breathable doesn't seem to take into account the whole freezing their lungs solid part.

"It's not that bad. I don't think I broke any ribs." Shiro has settled down as best he can on the floor behind the pilot's seat. Black's environmental controls are in better shape than Red's after the firefight, so it gets the dubious honor of keeping them from turning into a couple of paladin popsicles. "I'll be fine until we get communications back up."

Oh, yeah. Another thing the scanners had failed to mention when finding them the least-lethal planet in range to touch down on: the ion storm bouncing their communications signals into uselessness. Now those scanners are just full of information about the duration and effects of the storm, like there's some vengeful librarian AI in there trying to trap them so it has an audience for its pertinent facts.

Given the whole evil dead king AI trying to murder them incident, Keith is halfway convinced that this is what's actually happening.

"Sit down and stop trying to murder my console." Shiro has both of their emergency blankets thrown over him, but hasn't made any move to wrestle his armor back on. At least they have two this time, unlike that whole clusterfuck with lizards and geysers and Shiro's gaping abdominal wound.

That had taught Keith a valuable lesson about keeping basic crash supplies on hand.

"Fine," Keith says after another moment of glaring at the weather readout. They're well and truly fucked for the next few hours. At least, he thinks it's the next few hours; he's never been as good at keeping Altean time as Lance. A varga is an hour, right?

Staying under the blankets with Shiro is, admittedly, a much better idea than shouting into the void. Even if the void and its stupid ion storm and the Galra in it-- and yes, he's including himself in that number-- all deserve it.

Shiro's arm is heavy and reassuring around his shoulders, and that's all the convincing he needs to stay where he is.

"Do you think we should reconstitute the goo or try to eat it like a protein bar?" Keith holds up one of the emergency ration blocks, squinting as if looking hard enough will reveal some secret to making it palatable.

"That's like asking if I prefer hanging or the firing squad." He can hear the face Shiro is making. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss MREs."

"That's disgusting." Keith's only experience with MREs comes from training exercises, which is more than enough for him. "You're disgusting, Shiro."

"You only say that because you get the worst ones during training. I would take the spaghetti or beef stew MREs over green nutrient paste any day. Let me guess, it's still all rubber eggs and rock-hard burritos."

"No, they downgraded to industrial chicken slurry." He doesn't normally care that much-- honestly, he's fine with green nutrient paste-- but that chicken abomination had been so bad that not even he could eat it.

"I thought they banned that." Shiro laughs, then groans. "Don't be funny, Keith, it hurts to laugh."

"I can't help it. Galra Keith is funnier than Human Keith." He opens up the packet, which isn't quite foil. Altean technology sits in this weird uncanny valley between recognizably human and incomprehensibly alien, and it makes his fingers itch.

"Last I checked, there was no such thing as a separate Galra Keith and Human Keith." Oh, they are not rehashing this discussion for the seven thousandth time just because he'd repeated Hunk's shitty joke at his own expense. So he opens up the inexplicable, unsettling wrapper and takes a bite out of concentrated nutrient paste to have an excuse not to talk.

This is a mistake. This is such a mistake.

At first it does feel like biting into a cheap protein bar kept past its expiration date: a little too gritty, a little too dry. It's soft enough to be edible, but tastes marginally worse than the reconstituted version. The slight medicinal bitterness concentrates down into something almost soapy, but not so much as to be inedible.

It's a mistake because after a couple of seconds it sucks all the moisture out of his mouth. Shit, it's trying to reconstitute itself into regular food goo.

He chokes and fumbles around for one of the water bottles. After what feels like an hour but is realistically more like half a second, his hand lands on one. He wrenches it open before the next coughing spasm starts.

"Easy," Shiro murmurs once Keith manages to drink, cough, drink, cough, and finally breathe again. His hand strokes a steady circle up and down Keith's back. "You okay?"

"Don't pick the firing squad," Keith rasps. "Mix that with water first. I think it sucked out my lungs."

"Duly noted." Shiro doesn't seem to be in any hurry to eat his own ration. "Hunk can never find out about this."

"He won't be surprised. I'm sure he's heard stories about my first year at the Garrison." His voice still sounds kind of fucked up, but less like he's had a stupid mishap and more like he's been choking on a dick. Which would be a way more productive use of his time all around, if he's being honest.

He shifts a little where he sits, which draws a hiss from Shiro. Shit, with the environmental control inside his armor, he hasn't even considered what it feels like outside. The plating must be freezing.

"What are you doing?" Shiro stares at him, openmouthed, as he shucks his chestplate and drops it to the floor. "Not that I'm not appreciative, but there's a time and a place, Keith."

For fuck's sake.

"I'm trying to not freeze your side off with the armor plating." Keith closes his eyes. Patience yields focus. Patience with his boyfriend yields not smothering his boyfriend with a blanket. "But thanks for the preemptive shootdown. Real flattered over here."

Once he's stripped down to his flight suit and back under the blanket, Shiro leans his head against Keith's and sighs.

"I wasn't shooting you down. You caught me off guard, that's all. And do you want Pidge catching you naked? Or worse, Coran?" Well, that's enough to derail any potentially sexy train of thought right there.

"We have at least two hours until anyone can get through. So we could. If you wanted to, I mean." They get so little time alone, between distress calls and Coran's weird ideas about team-building and whatever fresh hell Zarkon's terrible son has decided to unleash this particular week. The more he thinks about it, the better the idea sounds.

"Are you sure? Because last time you said that, you thought a dobosh was an hour." Shiro has no right to sound so amused, considering that he hadn't caught the mistake, either. And that he'd been way more embarrassed than Keith when Allura had knocked on his door earlier than expected.

"It said two and a half vargas, I swear. You want me to double-check it?" He doesn't get the chance to make good on that; Shiro tightens the arm around him and turns his head to press a kiss to Keith's temple.

"No, I believe you." Keith can feel the smile against his skin. "I never figured you for the one who'd want to act out a terrible romance novel, though."

"What-- I am _not_." He can feel himself turning red all the way up to his ears.

"We're trapped together in the freezing weather, sharing a blanket to stay warm while we wait for a dramatic rescue. Matt had an entire shelf full of books with that exact plot." That is the least surprising thing Keith's heard all week, but what was that Shiro had just said about a time and a place? This is neither the time nor the place for getting weirded out by Matt Holt's reading habits.

" _Takashi._ Do you want me to blow you or not?" He won't have to do much work to peel off the rest of Shiro's flight suit, not with it already pulled down halfway Keith could wrap his ribs. All he needs is the word.

Shiro freezes right where he sits. Then he lifts his head to look at Keith like this is somehow a shocking question.

"Forget what I said about you being a romantic," he says, his cheeks as red as Keith's entire face must have been a moment earlier. "But yes, pretty much always."

"Then stop saying things that make me not want to do that." Keith moves his hands gingerly, careful to avoid the bandage-wrapped bruises that he isn't entirely convinced aren't worse than Shiro claims.

Shiro almost sabotages the entire effort by sliding his human hand up the back of Keith's neck and pulling him down. Keith just barely manages to catch hold of Shiro's shoulder and avoid falling right on top of his injury. His other hand hits the wall as he loses his balance and drops onto his knees, and it bumps against Shiro's side despite his best efforts.

Keith expects a flinch, an admonition to be careful, _something_. What he gets instead is a shiver and a sharp inhalation of breath.

"Shiro?" Shit, *shit*, something actually is broken and he's made it worse. "Sorry, I'll--"

Shiro grabs Keith's wrist with his free hand.

"Do that again," he says, voice gone low and breathless.

Keith does as he's told without thinking about it, moves with the same automatic, unblinking trust he finds behind his lion's controls. When he presses his hand against Shiro's side, he gets a hitching, breathy groan in return.

"Seriously?" Keith almost doesn't recognize his own voice. He sounds rough, but not like he just had thanks to the poor food choices. It's a softer sort of roughness, something he might think is hot coming from someone else. Coming out of his own mouth? It's just weird, like he's not himself.

"I didn't exactly expect it, either." Shiro's words come out ragged, but the grip of his metal hand around Keith's wrist is anything but tentative. "If it's too freaky for you, we can stop."

"The only thing freaking me out is how much I'm not freaking out." He lets Shiro lead him, press his hand down where he wants it. "Any other secret kinks you want me to act out while we're at it?"

"Says the man who's literally acting out a shitty romance novel." Shiro huffs out a laugh, his breath hot against Keith's cheek. "I think hypothermia wins for the weirdest secret kink in the room."

"I was just taking off my armor because it would be uncomfortable. You're the one who made it a sex thing." Not that he has any objections to making it a sex thing. Keith would like it on the record that he is a huge fan of sex things; he just doesn't want to be blamed when making things weird isn't his fault for once.

"Never said I wasn't." Shiro gives in with grace, probably because Keith would keep on arguing the point forever if allowed. He's well aware of his own weaknesses and sometimes even admits them to himself, and that's definitely one of them. This time he decides to do something about it, and kisses Shiro to stop himself.

Shiro bites at his lip and tightens the metal-fingered grip around his wrist, and the combination has Keith shuddering and grinding down onto Shiro's lap. He presses his hand down harder on that bruising, digging his fingers in until Shiro pulls away from the kiss.

"I changed my mind." His voice spills out breathless, wrecked. "I don't want you to blow me. I want you right where you are."

"I'm a big fan of where I am." Keith is helpless to do anything but agree. "Where does _keep holding me back like that_ rank on the weird kink scale?"

"Below hypothermia, for sure," Shiro assures him. Before Keith can argue for or against that, Shiro wrenches his arm up against his back and holds it there. He can't talk because he's too busy feeling that to breathe.

This seems like a thing that should have come up before, either in sparring practice or while arranging themselves in too-small regulation beds. Why hasn't it come up before? Is it just not a normal week unless Keith's physical makeup is finding yet another new and inconvenient way to surprise him? Oh, hey, you can open Galra doors and use quintessence! You're half Galra, by the way! Did we mention that you'd really like Shiro to hold you down and have his way with you?

At least this particular development feels good and isn't the only thing standing between him and certain death. It's definitely an improvement over the others.

"You want me to hold onto both of them?" Shiro's metal fingers flex against his wrist. Oh, fuck, he'd be able to with that hand, wouldn't he?

"Yeah, _please_." He can't help but shiver. "You'll have to unzip me, though."

Not that these Altean suits have zippers. It's not like they have a verb that better represents the act of opening weird, space-age clothing fasteners. If they borrow one from Altean, well, that's just another word for Lance to use for everything except the correct context. And now he's going to stop thinking about Lance immediately, because that is not the kind of thought he wants to be having while Shiro is unzipping (fuck the alien grammar police living in his own head) his flight suit.

Keith realizes the flaw in this plan as soon as Shiro has both of his wrists behind him.

"What about you? I can't-- didn't you want me to keep touching you?" He's still mostly wearing his clothes, since he can't peel the suit off his shoulders with his arms trapped behind him. With the front open he's pressed skin-to-skin with Shiro in every way that matters, so he has nothing to complain about.

"Plenty of time for that later. Besides, then I can prove my ribs aren't broken and you'll stop going easy on me." Shiro's smile is almost enough to distract him from everything else. Almost, but not quite, and he strains experimentally against Shiro's grip.

It doesn't budge.

"Fuck, _yes_." Keith leans in again, but this time he aims lower: for Shiro's throat instead of his mouth, and he bites down. Not hard enough to break the skin-- he can just imagine that conversation with Lance and Hunk about how he can't maul people just because he's Galra Keith now, and he would prefer it remain in his imagination-- but hard enough that Shiro groans.

"Keep doing that, that's great." Shiro's free hand holds onto the nape of his neck like a lead, urging him on as he does his best to start a new collection of bruises to pay attention to.

They're barely doing more than making out-- or barely doing less, depending on how you look at it-- but Keith's dick is already sliding slick and easy against Shiro's belly just from this. At this rate he's going to come all over both of them.

Shiro lets go of his neck and he whimpers against his skin at the loss. He doesn't feel it for long, though; the reason becomes clear when Shiro wraps his hand around both of them at the same time. They're both wet enough that the friction is good instead of uncomfortable, so at least Keith isn't alone in being way too into this.

Keith stops biting down just because he _doesn't_ trust himself not to bite too hard when he comes. Instead he teases where he's already bitten, sucking at the rising bruises until Shiro is shaking under him. His hand moves faster, but that's not what finally tips Keith over the edge. No, that would be when he arches his back and Shiro's iron grip on his wrists keeps his hands right where they are. He couldn't get away if he tried, and he has no idea why that idea is hot.

But it is, logical or not, and Keith comes with his face pressed tight to Shiro's shoulder and his thighs tense on either side of Shiro's lap.

"Come on, Shiro," he gasps, falling slack against him. Shiro lets go of his hands; Keith doesn't wait so much as a breath before one of his hands is back at Shiro's side and the other stills Shiro's human hand. "Let me."

Shiro yields immediately, pulling back and giving Keith control. He doesn't last long once Keith takes him in hand and digs his fingers into his bruised side as hard as he dares without confirmation that Shiro isn't understating his injury. When he does, Shiro draws in a sharp breath and comes undone right then and there.

They stay like that for... well, Keith isn't sure how long. Long enough for him to start feeling sticky instead of breathlessly sated. He staggers off of Shiro's lap and settles on the floor next to him again.

"Goddamn," he says. His voice is still hoarse.

"I _know_." He reaches over with his prosthetic hand to lace his fingers with Keith's clean ones, but doesn't otherwise move. "That was pretty incredible."

Keith doesn't have a chance to answer. As soon as he opens his mouth, something on the console beeps.

"Shiro?" It's Pidge. "Is Keith with you? Can you read me?"

Shiro raises an eyebrow at him. Keith can feel himself turning red again.

"Two and a half vargas, huh," Shiro says, but he's smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> I have never eaten an American military MRE, but I did do some cursory research on which ones are generally considered the best/worst. By 'cursory research,' I mean that I Googled it for five minutes and read a Reddit post with a decently large number of comments. Accuracy not guaranteed.
> 
> On that note, you will never convince me that Keith is not 50% that brogrammer who would live on Soylent instead of real food if he could and 50% that poor kid in the cafeteria who will eat anything for $10.


End file.
